


late-night coffee and first meetings

by mistyheartrbs



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, First Meetings, Musical References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23595553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyheartrbs/pseuds/mistyheartrbs
Summary: Peggy Carter did not try to think romantically.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	late-night coffee and first meetings

**Author's Note:**

> cartinelli renaissance 2020!! woo!!!

Peggy Carter did not try to think romantically.

Part of this was a survival tactic - swooning over starlit skies and long-awaited kisses would only distract from the tasks at hand - but it was also to protect herself. No use in dreaming of something that could never happen. When she did indulge herself in those feelings, it was through a more pragmatic lens - a promised dance, a given date, something that could have - _should_ have - happened. Something concrete, at least. Something that would be possible, for some other woman, in some other time.

This was, of course, why she thought nothing of it when she found herself caught in a rainstorm, her umbrella threatening to turn itself upside down, nestled as it was between her head and her shoulder so that she could focus on protecting the files in her arms, hunched over them like a mother to her child, or some equally reductively gendered metaphor. No gentleman savior (or gentlewoman savior for that matter; Peggy knew herself well enough) would offer their cover to her, and if they did it was more than likely an enemy who’d find themselves with an umbrella-shaped bruise come tomorrow. 

But there was a light on the side of the busy New York road, and it was a late-night diner and it seemed mostly empty, and Peggy didn’t have much waiting for her back at the apartment aside from probing questions from Colleen that would only serve to make her feel more alone and a desk full of paperwork far below her pay grade. 

So Peggy did the only rational thing, the least romantic thing she could have possibly done in that instance, and shoved open the revolving doors like a battering ram. 

The L&L Automat - that was what the sign said it was called - was, as Peggy had guessed, nearly empty. So empty, in fact, that its only other occupant was a waitress, probably around Peggy’s own age, cussing rapidly under her breath. 

_“Frickin’ boss giving me the late shift like anyone’s gonna show up in this dump at two in the-_ oh.” She noticed Peggy, then, head jerking up at the sound of the little bell signaling her arrival. “Oh. Welcome to the L&L Automat!” It was like a light switch. It was a little scary. Peggy knew a kindred soul when she saw one.

“My apologies for entering so late,” Peggy said, collapsing her umbrella and dropping it in the umbrella-holder at the door. “It’s a wonder you’re open now.” 

“I know, right?” the waitress - Angie, her off-kilter nametag said in bold lettering - guffawed, light and quick and loud. Peggy found herself smiling too. “I was just about ready to bite the bullet and take a nap in one of the booths.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Call it paranoia, English. Don’t wanna get caught, then I’d be out of a job.” Angie gestured at the counter. “C’mon. Sit. You look like you’ve had a helluva day, and I could use some cheering up.”

“English?” Peggy didn’t- she didn’t _mind_ the nickname (it was certainly better and leagues more respectful than what the men at work called her, sometimes, when they thought she wasn’t listening or when they knew she _was_ listening and just wanted to get under her skin) but it was strange to hear how casually it came from this woman - this _stranger._

“Unless you’re not and I’m just hallucinating your voice, or hallucinating all of you because I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks.” Angie started fiddling with the coffeemaker, her tiny hat slipping off her head. She righted it up without looking back. 

“Rest assured, I am here.” Peggy started feeling around for her wallet, buried as it was underneath the important files and things that a civilian like Angie could never - _would_ never - see. “Why haven’t you slept?” Looking closer at her, Peggy could indeed see the slouch in Angie’s posture, the dark circles under her eyes. 

“Oh, you don’t wanna hear a boring story like that.”

“Tell me. It’ll take my mind off the day I’ve had.” Peggy shifted a bit on the stool. 

“You know Broadway?”

“I live in New York, yes.” 

“I couldn’t tell! Figured from the accent you might be a tourist.”

“Oh, no, I’m here to stay.” New York was where the SSR was, after all, and in a quieter, more sentimental part of her soul it was where Steve was, too. “You’re an actress, then?”

“Hah, I wish.” Angie slid a mug of black coffee forward, and Peggy took it with a murmured _thank you._ “Nope, not yet. But I’m trying. This…” and here she gestured vaguely to the entire automat “...is just a way to make ends meet. But you have to audition, and it’s like they _want_ you to get discouraged because they’re always held at the worst times and the boss got sick of me switchin’ my shift all the time so he saddled me with this one because the theatre bigwigs won’t hold auditions at two in the morning or whatever.” She scoffed. “24-hour service at a diner. Like that’ll ever catch on.”

“You’re determined.” Peggy inhales the scent of the coffee. 

“Sorry if it’s not your kinda thing. I just tend to make assumptions and really it’s on the house if you don’t like it, the boss will never know-”

“Angie.” Peggy looked up from the coffee, gauging her reaction. “It’s quite alright. This is lovely.”

“My ability to make normal conversation tends to shut down about an hour before this, so what you’re getting now is the unfiltered version.” Angie poured something for herself - another coffee. Peggy raised an eyebrow. “Don’t judge. You’ve gotta keep yourself going somehow.”

“I’m not judging! You doubt yourself quite a lot.” 

“Hey, it’s too late for this psychoanalysis stuff.” Angie paused, drummed her fingers on the counter. Her nails were short, Peggy noticed, and the drumming didn’t really make any noise. 

“What about a listening ear, then?” This wasn’t the kind of thing Peggy signed up for - it was why she’d never let herself get close to Colleen, why she still beat herself up sometimes for daring to dream with Steve - but this woman with her sharp laugh and her quick wit, something about her was...chipping at her, slowly, carefully. It made Peggy a little nervous. 

“Huh?”

“Tell me about your day. It might help...take my mind off of things.” Things like the men in her office guffawing over magazines Chief Dooley pretends he doesn’t see, things like Colleen’s innocent inquiries that never amounted to anything more than passing conversation between acquaintances. But of course Angie could never know any of that.

“Alright, then. So I wake up, Miriam Fry’s making a racket downstairs as usual ‘cause someone snuck her boyfriend in through the window and she doesn’t know who it is, right, but she knows _someone_ did it because the guy left one of his shoes outside!” Angie paused to laugh. Peggy was surprised at her own smile. “Men aren’t allowed at my place, see.”

“That must be something.”

“That’s one word for it.” Angie traced a shape in the counter with her finger. Peggy didn’t know what it was, but for some reason right then she _wanted_ to, not for any practical reason, just to know what this woman did when she wasn’t thinking so much. “So she says she’ll be doin’ room inspections for everyone, and I’m not worried at all, but I’ve got pals and I know that some of them have things to hide, so I just keep my mouth shut.”

“There aren’t any gentlemen knocking at your door?” Peggy tried to quell the thoughts brewing in _that_ corner of her mind.

“If there were, I’d have ‘em out of there faster than you could order a platter of eggs.” Angie paused, took in a sharp inhale of breath like she could suck the words back in. “Because of my career, you know. Gotta stay focused on getting on Broadway. Can’t let any half-wit guy ruin my shot at that.”

“Of course not.” Peggy looked back down and took a sip of her coffee. It was good, or as good as something could be at a place like this. “You’re ambitious.”

“Ambitious. I’ll take it. People don’t usually use words quite as nice as that.”

“They should be proud to even know you.” Peggy’s heart beat a little faster. Probably because of the coffee this late at night. “I’ll be able to say I met a celebrity before she made it big.”

“Meet me at the Tonys,” Angie said, like it was the simplest thing in the world, and her eyes were wistful and Peggy wanted… 

For once, she wanted to be romantic, she wanted to sweep this woman off her feet and sing a duet with her and dance in smoky underground places a woman of her standing shouldn’t even know about, she wanted to believe in love at first sight, she wanted a thousand different things and it was probably just because it was so late (or early, depending on who you asked) and she was lonely.

“English?”

“What?”

“You looked a little spaced out there.” Angie scuffed her shoe on the tile floor. “I’ve loved this, y’know, people really hardly actually come in on the late shift and I’ve missed actual human interaction without Miss Fry breathing down my neck, but you should go home.” Angie stared out the window, at the streetlights, at the rain beginning to let up. “The rain’s pretty much done, you wouldn’t wanna get caught up in it again.”

“Thank you, then, Angie.” Peggy tipped her generously, hoped she would use the extra to follow her Broadway dreams. “Though, before I go…”

“Yeah?”

“Would you show me one of your audition songs?”

“Oh, geez, English, you don’t wanna hear that.”

“Try me.” Peggy folded her hands on the counter, leaned forward a little. “Pretend I’m a casting director.”

“Okay, then.” Angie cleared her throat, stood up a little straighter. _“Why do they think up stories that link my name with yours?”_ Then she slipped to the other end of the counter, slouched a little, deepened her voice. _“Why do the neighbors gossip all day behind their doors?”_ Then she stood up again. _“I know a way to prove what they say is quite untrue…”_

She went on like that, hypnotic, energetic. Peggy had never been one for the theater, but she understood, all of a sudden, or maybe she was just… 

Well, there was no point in ruminating on that now.

“Bravo!” Peggy cheered, once Angie had finished and taken her bow. 

“Aw, shucks.”

“Don’t undersell yourself. You’re good. You’ll make it, Angie.” 

“Don’t make any bets. Gals like me tend to get forgotten before our names are in lights.”

“Nonsense. You were wonderful!”

“Wonderful doesn’t pay the bills.” Angie sighed, quietly. “But thank you.”

“Anytime.” Peggy made a note to return.

“So I’ll see you around…” Angie gestured a little, cheeks dusted pink. 

“Peggy.” 

“Peggy. Yes.”

“So the entire ‘English’ thing, it was because you…”

“Because I didn’t have a chance to ask your name, yeah.”

“Stranger things have happened in my line of work.” Peggy stood up and took her umbrella. “Goodnight, Angie.”

“‘Night, Peggy.”

***

“Don’t you tell me that you fell for me the night we met.” Angie looked up at the ceiling, wrapped tight in her bedsheets. Howard’s penthouse was more than big enough for separate rooms, and indeed they’d occupied them for quite a while, but nowadays that felt excessive. “You’re not that much of a romantic, English.”

“I can be romantic!” Peggy said, mock-aghast. She wouldn’t have made a bad actress herself, Angie thought, but then again maybe that was just one of the requirements of her super-secret spy job that Angie still only had a handful of details about. 

“You got me a coffeemaker for my birthday.”

“You said ours was broken!”

“I work at an automat!” Angie tried to quell her laughter, but it spilled out of her anyway, and soon Peggy was laughing too. “Peggy, I can just make coffee there.”

“I didn’t know it at the time, though.”

“Hrm?”

“That I was in love with you.” Peggy pulled her knees up, like she usually did when she was embarrassed. It was _adorable._ Not that Angie could admit that. “I simply thought that I was…impressed, by you. That it was a platonic sort of admiration. Maybe a longing for the life I could never have.”

“Life with another lady?” Angie snuggled closer. Peggy still smelled like copper, dust, whatever else she ran into on those missions of her. “Seems like you’ve managed that pretty well.”

“A life where I wasn’t scared.” 

“Oh.”

“But it was difficult to ignore you, Angie.”

“Hah, you flatter me.”

“I tell the truth. It’s the least I can do.” Peggy rolled over, then, took a record out from underneath the bed. Angie sat up to try and get a better look.

“What’s that?”

“You don’t remember?” Peggy removed the record from its sleeve, carefully, always carefully. She always looked like she was getting ready to defuse a bomb. She probably _did_ defuse bombs, sometimes. Angie smirked when she saw the title.

“So you are a romantic.” 

“When I need to be.” Peggy got up out of bed and placed the record on the player, let it run for a few seconds before offering Angie her hand. “Do you still remember the lyrics?”

“‘Course I do. Even if I kept getting beat out for the role.” Angie stood up, pressed her forehead to Peggy’s. “Can we just stay like this for a little while?”

“Of course, darling.” 

And they swayed like that, in the morning, with nobody there but the two of them, and it was silly and corny and romantic and…

Well, it was perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> the song angie sings is "people will say we're in love" from oklahoma!, which i found out is actually a very popular fic title


End file.
